police scanners

my question is ,how can i boost up my hand held police scanners to pick up frequecies from a reasonable distance? i live in a piss hole town and the closest main cop station is anywhere from 50 to 150 kilometres away,but further would be better??

— Posted by Zambosan on 2:22 pm on Feb. 26, 2002

You need to boost the signal entering the RF receiver; the simpler option is to get a larger antenna… look for info on the web for an antenna in the appropriate frequency range, there’s lots of info out there and antenna design is a black art. Alternately, you may also be able to purchase a powered antenna, which has a high-gain amplifier integrated into the antenna itself. Sometimes these are useful, but they unfortunately cannot help your signal-to-noise ratio in the case of same-band noise, and a cheapie one can make it worse… so you might pick up a distant carrier, but get a lot of noise in the bargain. 🙁

— Posted by somefukinsnapov on 1:34 am on Feb. 27, 2002

k gotcha but…the frequencies differ from town to town or even suburb to suburb.so the bigger antenna has not worked (tried it allready)considering i want to kinda make it portable is there an option fer a kinda portable satellite??im talkin major reception

the signal to noise / or as u explained can be gutted by a simple squelch dial (on mine anyhoo)so thats no probs ive got about 30 kilometres to the nearest copstation but havent been able to boost the antenna past there!? cheers for the feedbback zam tis all good preditor>??anything from u

— Posted by Zambosan on 9:54 am on Feb. 27, 2002

A satellite receiver dish only works if you have a satellite to talk to. 🙂 The frequencies *will* vary, yes… but they’re usually in the same band. In the US, the FCC designates bandwidth for emergency and law enforcement, and the band is narrow enough that an antenna can be optimized for it. As far as a squelch, that actually doesn’t do anything for signal to noise… a squelch is a variable-threshold noise gate, basically shuts off any output until the demodulated signal envelope goes above a certain threshold. That’ll keep the speaker from hissing when no one is talking, but once they start talking (i.e. you get a strong enough signal), all that additive noise is still there. If the reception is good enough, the noise isn’t all that noticeable under the person’s voice, i.e. you’ve got a S/N that is high enough to be tolerated. Digital processing can help to suppress in-band noise, the most common type being an adaptive auto-correlator; if you convolve a signal with itself, any gaussian random component tends to cancel out, leaving you with a signal that is mostly the signal of interest.

— Posted by Just0nePepsi on 3:37 pm on Feb. 27, 2002

Those ones that you hook up to car windows can be hook up to ground windows. They work great. You can get them at Radio Shack.

If anyone cares I have an awsome scanner. I listen to phone calls.

— Posted by Hergor on 3:45 pm on Feb. 27, 2002

it’s not a police scanner, but i’ve got one of these devices telephone-companies use to check their cables. (usually a ‘beeper’, a little signal-transmitter is hooked up the line on one end and the reciever is placed near the cable at the other end) when placed next to a telephone line it can catch the conversations led there in, too.

does anyone know how i can extend its range to let’s say about 1m?

— Posted by Darkie on 4:10 pm on Feb. 27, 2002

Pepsi, what kinda scanner/model do u have?

— Posted by Just0nePepsi on 4:32 pm on Feb. 27, 2002

I got a radio shack Pro-29

— Posted by Zambosan on 1:13 pm on Feb. 28, 2002

When I was in college, we had a weird dude on our floor with a scanner modified to listen to the analog cellular band. He’d sit near the window in the lounge at the end of the floor and listen to people’s phone conversations all… day… long. (Can you say voyeur?) Me & about 8 others listened with him for an hour or so once… 8 calls out of 10 we captured were people calling for drugs, no kidding. Even with all the “code” words, it’s pretty obvious. The rest of them were personal calls, one was some drunk guy bawling his eyes out to his wife on the other end… calling himself a loser, etc. etc. etc… I felt so dirty I had to leave. :biggrin:

— Posted by Just0nePepsi on 5:34 pm on Feb. 28, 2002

Wish the convo’s i hear would be that good. Sometimes late at night i hear people talking weird languages. I think it is gangs. Also i hear old ladies and people getting in fights. In the 40.000 – 49.000 feqs you can hear people that are close. I listen to these people down the street from me all the time.

— Posted by somefukinsnapov on 6:46 am on Mar. 1, 2002

sweet lakaz zam..thanks again so aside from all my prior questions ..can i hook my scanner up to listen in on phone conversations…(>>voyeur any suggestions?

— Posted by Just0nePepsi on 9:39 pm on Mar. 1, 2002

There are a lot of sites that have the mod’s for the scanners so you can listen to the fones. I swear listening to people is funny as hell. If you ain’t got nopthing else to do its a good way to get a laugh.

— Posted by somefukinsnapov on 1:18 am on Mar. 2, 2002

yeah really… ive loked around everywhere for some mod sites fer scanners but im fuked if i can find what i want?? maybe u could post a few links or even email me some of those sites u found..its all good!!!!!cheers ppl

jAk

— Posted by somefukinsnapov on 2:13 am on Mar. 4, 2002

Quote: from Just0nePepsi on 8:32 am on Feb. 28, 2002I got a radio shack Pro-29

yeah pespi i got a radio shack pro 27 and 28!!!

(Edited by somefukinsnapov at 8:24 pm on Mar. 28, 2002)

— Posted by somefukinsnapov on 4:23 am on Mar. 28, 2002

justonepepsi..ive had no word,can you send or post some of those sites/links in the site suggestions ,or here

cheers bud!

— Posted by morrisonisgod on 6:08 am on Mar. 28, 2002

im in the states,, florida.

Where do you go to buy a police scanner ,at?

— Posted by golkar on 7:41 pm on Mar. 28, 2002

Rat Shack employees might be able to show you what a scanner looks like. Depends if the smarter one is working or not. Most department stores have scanners and used ones show up frequently at yard sales and ham radio swap meets. Found my Uniden BC800XLT at a yard sale for $20 with rechargeable batteries in it. Not the best one out there, but it is amusing to listen to traffic stops.

— Posted by somefukinsnapov on 7:25 am on Mar. 29, 2002

Quote: from golkar on 11:41 am on Mar. 29, 2002Rat Shack employees might be able to show you what a scanner looks like. Depends if the smarter one is working or not. Most department stores have scanners and used ones show up frequently at yard sales and ham radio swap meets. Found my Uniden BC800XLT at a yard sale for $20 with rechargeable batteries in it. Not the best one out there, but it is amusing to listen to traffic stops.

yeah but thats not The question..thanks golkar… but

CHICKEN PIE FOR YOU!!!

(Edited by somefukinsnapov at 11:27 pm on Mar. 29, 2002)

— Posted by morrisonisgod on 7:38 am on Mar. 29, 2002

Yea, I tired radio”rat” shack. they didnt have any. I just wish I could snag one from a patrol car,lol.